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Restaurant Inspections Pushed Back Again in Neighborhoods Affected by Sandy

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Restaurant Inspections Pushed Back Again in Neighborhoods Affected by Sandy

By Glenn Collins December 11, 2012 9:07 amDecember 11, 2012 9:07 am

The New York City Department of Health will not send out restaurant inspectors to perform letter-grade inspections in city neighborhoods affected by Hurricane Sandy until Jan. 2, according to the department, pushing back their schedules once again.

Instead, inspectors will serve in an advisory capacity in those neighborhoods until the new year. “Until then, we will continue to provide consultation in person and by phone to restaurants that are still in the process of rebuilding – or reopening,” said Jean Weinberg, a spokeswoman for the department.

Andrew Moesel, a spokesman for the New York City chapters of the New York State Restaurant Association, said the trade group was “happy that the department understands the difficult conditions caused by Hurricane Sandy, and that many restaurants continue to battle adverse conditions.”

He added that “many restaurants doing their best to recover from the hurricane need some leeway to get their operations up and running.”

A few days after Sandy struck the region, Daniel Kass, a deputy health commissioner, said that graded restaurant inspections – those intended to determine whether restaurants deserve an A, B or C letter designation – would be suspended until Nov. 12 in areas where operations were damaged by the hurricane. But the extension into the new year reflects the reality that many neighborhoods have been slow to come back from the ravages of the storm.

The health department has no estimate of the total number of restaurants closed or severely damaged by the hurricane, but the restaurant association has estimated that hundreds of food-related businesses have been unable to fully resume operations.